Joseph C. Osborn

Assistant Professor of Computer Science
  • Expertise

    Expertise

    Joseph C. Osborn is an AI researcher exploring representations of interactivity for computational systems. He designs novel knowledge representations by drawing on his fine arts game design background and computer science training. He works in areas as diverse as software model checking, machine learning, game studies and HCI to find ways for computer programs to reason about interactive systems (including video games) so they can help human designers better understand the consequences of the design decisions they make.

    Areas of Expertise

    • Game design
    • Machine learning
    • Software verification
    • Static analysis
    • Programming languages
    • Design support
  • Work

    Work

    A. Summerville, C. Martens, B. Samuel, J. C. Osborn, N. Wardrip-Fruin, and M. Mateas. Gemini: Bidirectional generation and analysis of games via ASP. In Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference, 2018.

    Summerville, A., Martens, C., Harmon, S. Mateas, M., Osborn, J. C., Wardrip-Fruin, N., and Jhala, A. (2017). “From Mechanics to Meaning,” IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games. Journal article

    Lowood, H., Kaltman, E., and Osborn, J. C. (2017).  “Screen Capture and Replay: Documenting Gameplay as Performance,” In Histories of Performance Documentation: Museum, Artistic, and Scholarly Practices, Giannachi, G. and Westerman, J. (eds). Routledge. Book chapter

    Osborn, J. C., Ryan, J., and Mateas, M. (2017).  “Analyzing Expressionist Grammars by Reduction to Symbolic Visibly Pushdown Automata,”  Tenth International Workshop on Intelligent Narrative Technologies.

    Osborn, J. C., Samuel, B., Summerville, A., and Mateas, M. (2017). “Towards General RPG Playing,”  Fourth Workshop on Experimental AI in Games.

    Osborn, J. C., Lambrigger, B., and Mateas, M. (2017).  “HyPED: Modeling and Analyzing Action Games as Hybrid Systems,” Thirteenth Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference. Best Student Paper

    Osborn, J. C., Summerville, A., and Mateas, M. (2017). “Automated Game Design Learning,”  Thirteenth IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games.

    Osborn, J. C., Summerville, A., and Mateas, M. (2017).  “Automatic Mapping of NES Games with Mappy,”  Workshop on Procedural Content Generation. (Mappy was featured on Slate in Brogan, J. (2017). “Meet Mappy, a Software System that Automatically Maps Old-School Nintendo Games.”

    Osborn, J. C., Wardrip-Fruin, N., and Mateas, M. (2017). “Refining Operational Logics.  Foundations of Digital Games,” Best Paper Honorable Mention

    Kaltman, E., Osborn, J. C., and Wardrip-Fruin, N. (2017). “Getting the GISST: A Toolkit for the Creation, Analysis and Reference of Game Studies Resources,” Foundations of Digital Games.

    Kaltman, E., Osborn, J. C., and Wardrip-Fruin, N. (2017). “Game and Interactive Software Scholarship Toolkit (GISST),”  Foundations of Digital Games Demonstrations Track.

    Summerville, A., Osborn, J. C., Holmgård, C., and Zhang, D. W. (2017).  “MARIO: Mechanics Automatically Recognized via Interactive Observation,” Foundations of Digital Games.

    Summerville, A., Osborn, J. C., and Mateas, M. (2017). “CHARDA: Causal Hybrid Automata Recovery via Dynamic Analysis,” International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI).

    Osborn, J. C., Samuel, B., and Mateas, M. (2017). “Visualizing the Strategic Landscape of Arbitrary Games,” SAGE Journal of Visual Analytics, Special Issue on Visual Game Analytics.  Journal article

    Osborn, J. C., and Mateas, M. (2017). “Evaluating a Solver-Aided Puzzle Design Tool,” First Workshop on Mixed-Initiative Co-Creative Interfaces (MICI).

    Osborn, J. C., and Mateas, M. (2017). “Against Forward Models,” First Workshop on What’s Next for AI in Games? (WNAIG).

    Martens, C., Summerville, A., Mateas, M., Osborn, J. C., Harmon, S., Wardrip-Fruin, N., and Jhala, A. (2016). “Proceduralist Readings, Procedurally,” Workshop on Experimental AI in Games (EXAG).

    Fava, D., Shapiro, D., Osborn, J. C., Schaef, M., Whitehead, E. J. (2016). “Crowd-Sourcing Program Preconditions via a Classification Game,” 38th International Conference on Software Engineering.

  • Education

    Education

    Ph.D. in Computer Science, University of California, Santa Cruz

    M.F.A in Interactive Media, University of Southern California

    B.S. in Software Engineering and Computer Science (Double Major), Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)

  • Awards & Honors

    Awards & Honors

    Best Student Paper Osborn, J. C., Lambrigger, B., and Mateas, M. (2017).  “HyPED: Modeling and Analyzing Action Games as Hybrid Systems,”  Thirteenth Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference.

    Best Paper Honorable Mention Osborn, J. C., Wardrip-Fruin, N., Mateas, M. (2017). “Refining Operational Logics,” Foundations of Digital Games.

    Outstanding TA Award 2016-2017

    Best Paper Nomination Osborn, J. C., Lederle-Ensign, D., Wardrip-Fruin, N., Mateas, M. (2015). “Combat in Games,” Foundations of Digital Games.